Watch: The devastating floods of 1953
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Neil Oliver, The One Show's history man, travelled to Norfolk to meet Charles Matkin. Charles was a volunteer fireman who took part in the rescue effort in the aftermath of the .
With a combination of an unusually high tide, gale force winds and waves reaching heights of over six metres the storm surge lashed the East coast, killing 31 people in Hunstanton, the coastal village where Charles lived. Across the country the storm claimed hundreds of lives and forced a total of , making it one of the worst natural disasters in British history.
The havoc wrought by the storm forced the government to take action, strengthening coastal defences, laying the first plans for the and creating a national flood warning system which is still in operation to this day.
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